Open Access

Analysis of the Structural Formal Elements of Adjustment Process offered by German Companies in Baden-Württemberg

This paper aims to provide essential information about the formal aspects of the adjustment process companies in Southern Germany utilize to adjust their employees to new surroundings. In particular, it shall be investigated and defined what formal aspects are and when firms apply them. Literature shows that companies do implement language courses, intercultural trainings or provide further information about the host country before a stay abroad. Nevertheless, the phases during and after the assignment are not taken into account with the required importance. Additionally, since national culture can be broken down into different layers, the organizational culture as one layer was analyzed, too.By conducting a quantitative research among companies in Baden-Württemberg, this paper shows the different approaches for dealing with a stay abroad. Scientific literature about the topic of adjustment of globally assigned workers shall help emphasizing the need of a deeper cultural insight. Furthermore, by attempting to explain the organizations’ culture, a better understanding of the chosen training methods shall be created. Definitions in the beginning helped to understand the concept of culture, the notion and the phases of adjustment. Almost all collected data has been accessed either through JSTOR (a digital library founded to help academic libraries or publishers) or similar databases, through the companies’ websites or through the survey results it selves.The results of this research show that the phase before the stay abroad is organized well. Companies offer pre-departure training, but during and after the expatriate time a lack of support is being observed. The firms obviously underestimate the necessary help needed during the assignment and in the return phase, which is why the thesis attempts to fill this gap. Through the organizational culture, described on the companies’ webpages the author was able to draw a conclusion to the applied training methods, which results in a consistent overall picture of the described firms. Companies from the automotive sector had the highest return rate in the survey, which is why particular attention was paid to it.